We talk with Dr. Peter Chin-Hong from University of California, San Francisco about his expertise as an infectious disease clinician on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. We'll talk about the current state of the pandemic in California, around the country, and in the world at-large. We also get into what's happening with the vaccines (including the FDA approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that uses mRNA to rewire a genetic trigger to the viral proteins) as well as other therapeutics, pandemic fatigue, and how holiday travel might work as other get togethers.
But we didn't just talk about the biology or healthcare. We also talked about how Peter — or as his students call him, PCH, which are his initials as well as California's famous Pacific Coast Highway — got interested in medicine while he was growing up in Trinidad and Tobago. We also talked about racism is a public health concern and how Twitter provided not only community for him this year but also a way to learn from others in the larger medical community.
Stay tuned until the end of the episode for a funny bit waxing about technology problems while recording.
Special Guest: Dr. Peter Chin-Hong.
Links:
- Wikipedia entry on Trinidad and Tobago
- A collection of the latest on Coronavirus (COVID-19) news from Google
- COVID-19 vaccine distribution at UCSF
- Coronavirus vaccine tracker
- FDA approves Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine for distribution
- Moderna COVID-19 vaccine awaits FDA approval. What is known about the drugmaker?
- Helen Chu from University of Washington
- The U.S. Covid death toll tops 300,000 as vaccine distribution begins
- Grocery shopping tips in COVID-19 from Dr. Jeffrey VanWingen — revised March 31, 2020
- COVID-19 deaths surpass 9/11 deaths in single day
- Intro and outro song: "Zombie Nation" by Jose Travieso